Books from The Brucedale Press

Aggie's Dream

Aggie's years at Owen Sound Collegiate: classes, debates, friendships. Can you imagine her excitement when she entered the grand assembly hall where debaters and orators shared the stage?

This new book shows Agnes Macphail's determination not to let town ways intimidate her as she moved closer to her dream of teacher training. By doing well academically, playing basketball, and taking part in the Literary Society, she proved she could do anything she set her mind and heart to.

194 pages
$20.00 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-896922-46-1

Aggie's Storms

As a young girl walking along a country road to school in Grey County, Ontario, she dreamed of teaching children like her sisters and their friends. Family, classmates, and neighbours knew Aggie as a determined, clever, fair-minded girl who spoke her mind.

None of them knew that, one day, the people of her community would elect her, Agnes Macphail, Canada's first woman Member of Parliament.

"There'll be lots of storms in life, you just have to pick the ones you're going to venture into," Grandma Campbell told her.

Aggie's Storms takes readers back to 1900, when ten-year-old Aggie lived in a log cabin in the Queen's Bush. Follow her schooldays at SS #4, Proton Township, her work in the family's garden and home, and her challenges as a girl with a dream. The author of two books for adults and many articles in newspapers, Donna Mann lives in Grey County, Ontario, where she has led the movement to mark sites important in the life of Agnes Macphail.

Aggie's Voice

Agnes Macphail in Stratford
By Donna Mann
Agnes Macphail's Story Continues in Forthcoming Book

In 1908, knowing that women teachers faced restrictions and unequal pay, Agnes Macphail lived her determination. At Stratford Collegiate, she told fellow students, "I believe that one's ability, attitude and natural gifts dictate a direction a student should go." To Aunt Maggie, whose home she shared while attending Stratford Normal School, Agnes declared, "I want to be the best teacher I can be."

This book follows Agnes through practice teaching, promenades with her beau, and her growing awareness of society's problems. . .and her commitment to become a strong voice for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Agnes Annis Mother and Missionary

A proper, private woman and busy as the day is long, Agnes Gregg Davis Annis birthed and raised children in China, amidst riots and beheadings. In the Canadian countryside, meetings added to the mix of a growing family in a minister's highly visible home.

This grandmother, who died when the author was five years old, never spoke about the orphanage where she lived for ten years of her childhood, nor of her father's second family. Readers can reopen the pages of the family album and look into her very eyes, understand her challenges and reach part of our past through the legacy of Agnes Annis: Mother and Missionary. A vividly-told family saga, spanning two continents and a challenging way of life that Wyvill conveys with real energy and depth.

~ Sarah Sheard, Humber College School of Writing.

pages black and white photographs and family tree

136 pages
$20.00 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-896922-52-2 214

Barns of the Queen's Bush

Launched in a barn where you are as likely to hear classical music as the cooing of pigeons or the lowing of cows, a book celebrating traditional timber-frame structures is one of the most popular publications of the Brucedale Press.

Barns of the Queen's Bush, written by Jon Radojkovic, chronicles twenty-three barns and two mills. While many of the featured barns are familiar to travellers on country roads in Grey and Bruce, several are gone. It's partly those disappearances that prompted Jon to compile the book.

"I tried to capture through photographs the intricate designs and craftsmanship of 19th century builders," he says. "These large timber frames, some 30 metres by 20 metres, were put together without one nail--only accurate notching and hardwood dowels have held whole barns together for over a hundred years."

Barns of the Queen's Bush includes a chapter on barn raisings and a guide to the language of barn-building. It features more than 200 photographs, as well as line drawings by Durham-area artist Mary Tripp MacCarl. Both a quality softcover version and a limited hardcover edition are available.

For the past ten years, Jon Radojkovic has freelanced as a photographer and journalist with the Owen Sound daily newspaper, The Sun Times, and local weeklies such as The Chesley Enterprise andThe Markdale Standard, and the monthly Mosaic. Barns of the Queen's Bush is his first book.

Beloved Muskoka

Elizabeth Penson (1884 - 1974) described herself as a Science teacher with a tendency to dream.

In her ninetieth year, living with her grand-niece, Elizabeth Penson rediscovered her journals from the early decades of the 1900s. Reading them allowed her to recall her youth, her passion for studies, time teaching in Saskatchewan, and years pioneering as a female in high school science labs. Backgrounding all: a romantic story set in the District of Muskoka, where she delighted in family summers and eventually retired.

. . .memories, a vast sea of them, seem to lift me on a rising swell and whisper to me in the trough as I close my eyes. I am floating away through childhood memories of long ago.

Joan McHugh has drawn on her great aunt's diaries and recollections to introduce a complex woman living, working, and daring in what is sometimes regarded as a simpler time.

The Big Wind

~ June 2012 ~

When the big wind began, Jack and Abbi were safe inside, but Grandma was in the tree house. The gusts caught her and blew her high over Orchard Knoll. Grandma liked seeing the farm from the sky, but she wanted to come down. Could Jack and Abbi save her?

Sally Raspin’s art shows just what Grandma saw as she flew over Orchard Knoll, the farm where Sally and Grandpa Jim live and grow many vegetables and fruits.

Birding the Bruce Peninsula

Gather your binoculars, your camera, your favourite field guide, and this book. Take along your spirit of adventure and experience the many habitats the Bruce offers. Spiral bound for convenience in travelling, this 56-page guide includes a map and details on 38 birding hotspots, with a checklist of birds you're likely to see.

Birding Saugeen Shores

Mike Pickup, author of Birding the Bruce Peninsula, takes readers on seven tours of his home community in Bruce County. With grasslands, forests, and waterfront on both the Lake Huron shoreline and Saugeen River, it's a birding paradise in all seasons.

Discover the spots to find rarely seen birds: Red-Headed Woodpecker, Savannah Sparrow, or Black-Billed Cuckoo. Others pass through on their migrations: Glossy Ibis, Whimbrel, Snowy Egret, Marbled Godwit, and many songbirds. Even in winter, birds add their colour to the landscape.

MacGregor Point Provincial Park hosts the annual Huron Fringe Birding Festival each spring at the height of warbler migration. Mike has been an active volunteer with the Friends of MacGregor since the festival’s early days.

Bring your binoculars, field guide, and curiosity, and go birding with Mike.

Bruce County Counts

A colouring book that lets young children count their way around Bruce County from one ferry in the harbour at Tobermory to ten bagpipers practising for a parade in Kincardine. They can find sheep, cattle, snowmobiles, tractors, hikers, windmills, and kids fishing and building a sand castle. Wiarton Willie is here too.

BRUCE Day by Day

The creators of this popular every-year day book have added more information in the 2013 edition, all celebrating the heritage of Bruce County.

With the original version nearing sell-out status, the new edition fills in a few blank dates. The daily glimpses into the past include birthdays for NHL hockey players, renowned nurses, and the death of Canada's first ambassador to the USA - all born in Bruce County!

Publication of the first edition prompted many responses, “I didn't know that happened here.” Again, you'll be surprised at the variety of inventions, firsts, disasters, celebrations and whimsy that mark the days from 1850 to 2011.

To the compilation in these 112 pages, readers can add their own significant dates as they experience BRUCE Day by Day.

The Brucedale Family Reader

The Brucedale Reader is a collection to wrap yourself in on wintry evenings or read aloud under a summer-shady tree. With the heart and eye of a fabric artist, Katharine Ferguson has pieced together familiar materials in different shapes, combining them with new textures and patterns.

Created in the inspiring Queen's Bush area of Ontario, The Brucedale Family Reader reflects the natural Bruce and its people in prose, poetry and art. The sixty-some contributors have produced works totalling roughly double their own number: stories, articles, poetry, drawings from a talented group who know and love the Bruce.

CORKY

CORKY—a dog who touches many lives—in a book that shows the redemptive power of human/animal connections.

The dog's present and past owners—an immigrant farmer, a boutique owner, and a tourist-lodge worker— can scarcely believe their Airedale is charged with killing a man. Will the bond between Corky and one of his humans save the day?

Dance More Often

As daughter, granddaughter, teacher, traveller, mother, wife and lover, Jennifer Frankum lets us hear the remembered melodies of her life.

Mourning, yet moving on from her mother’s death, she expresses both sadness and wonder in poetry that invites readers to turn their backs on everydayness of dust bunnies, difficult partings, and dying grandmothers to dance more often.

A perfect gift book for mothers, daughters, and the men who love them.

Daughters and Other Strangers

The eight stories in this collection plant characters firmly in the author's home territory, then send them into paths of danger and possible destruction.

As women and their families deal with crisis and crime, readers encounter stories full of strangers with dear and familiar faces: farming neighbours, a writer in a real-estate day job, a teacher searching for a missing colleague and friend. While not all the stories in this collection are of the mystery genre, every story does deal with the greatest mystery of all—the human heart.

HARVEST DUST

Tales of Farm Life 1913-1976

John R. Hardy's vivid account of life on a family farm from one hundred years ago to the final auction sale. Generously illustrated with images from family albums that take readers through the seasons: seeding and blossoms, haying and harvest, autumn colour and winter sparkle. His grandparents' farm was often visited by legendary photographer Reuben R. Sallows, who used the Hardys' operation to represent Ontario agriculture.

Designed by Bill Boyer, the pages of Harvest Dust evoke a bygone era in nostalgic detail.

John R. Hardy is the author/photographer of Rusty Rails: a photographic record of branchline railways in Midwestern Ontario 1961 – 1996 and Canadian Rail Travel.

Even Cows go to Heaven

From gentlemen cows to sunburned sows, Doc Knox treated them all, driving the country roads in his black, red-winged Pontiac.

Linda's father, Doctor Mel Knox, served as Owen Sound and Grey County's Public Health Veterinarian, and raised cattle, goats, pigs, chickens, cats and Elkhounds on the family farm, Rock Acres, on the Niagara Escarpment near Owen Sound.

At the Knox Veterinary Clinic, in barns and barnyards, at horse races and rotisserie chicken vendors, adventures of Doctor Mel Knox yield a harvest of humour. The book recalls life in a family that included Norwegian Elkhound nannies and AWOL pigs.

Linda says, "The inspiration for this book came to me as I read James Herriot's amusing and poignant British veterinary books during the 1960s. Since I saw many similar attributes in my father's veterinary practice, I was motivated to record his adventures—someday." Now in his nineeties, Doc Knox is delighted to see his tales in print.

One of the few writers to hold a Certificate in Dog and Cat Nursing from the Knox Clinic, Linda says, "I had plenty of personal experience and memories that helped me to write the descriptions of people and places."

Even Cows Go to Heaven is a quality soft-cover book of 144 pages. Full-colour cover art by Kristina Maus will make you smile, and the tales inside will prompt chuckles from readers.

$14.95 in Canada
ISBN 1-896922-30-9 978-1-896922-30-0

Fiddle and Fly

Egremont Township, 1867. Thirteen-year-old Ernest Wood tells of his life in a squatter's family: clearing land, tending the trapline, field work and barn-raising. But there's fun too, as he becomes friends with neighbours, especially Robert Aitken, a fellow fiddler.

When Pa leaves to serve with the military, Ernest, his mother and sisters cope at home.

Inspired by the real-life experiences of his ancestors in Canada West, Neil Aitken has crafted a novel to intrigue readers young and old with the adventures of two lads in the Queen's Bush.

184 pages, Quality Softcover $18.00 ISBN 978-1-896922-38-6

NEW! for teachers and home-schooling parents
Student activity pages to accompany reading of Fiidle and Fly. Developed and used by a classroom teacher, these pages can be downloaded to motivate and engage students.
Thanks to Laurie Aitken's wish to share, The Brucedale Press makes these available at no charge; however, we are interested in feedback from users - Email: info@brucedalepress.caSTUDENT ACTIVITY PAGES. (pdf)

FrontRunners Niigaanibatowaad

This powerful two-act play reveals the hidden story of the Aboriginal runners who carried the torch to the 1967 Pan-American Games at Winnipeg. Denied access to the stadium at that time, in 1999 the surviving runners received an apology from the Province and a standing ovation from the crowd. Laura Robinson has worked closely with surviving frontrunners to create a script that begins when they were boys in residential school. The play forms the basis for the film of the same title, to be distributed by the NFB.

The book includes full text of the script, the playwright’s notes, cast lists, and still photographs.

FrontRunners on DVD is now distributed through the National Film Board.

Grandma's Turkeys

Life at Orchard Knoll Farm seemed too quiet until Grandpa Jim had a good idea. Grandma's Turkeys tells the story of one spring and summer when a small flock of turkeys turned Orchard Knoll into a real farm.

With colourful art that brings the story alive, Sally Raspin's book takes young children along as the turkey chicks grow and explore. Delightful for reading aloud.

The Mysterious Bruce

Six short mysteries, each set in the Bruce. Visit Point Clark Lighthouse, the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant, Walkerton Jail. Explore the Georgian Bay shore, the wilds of the Bruce Peninsula, and the heart of a Wiarton storekeeper. Includes biographies and photographs of the authors.

Now That You Are Two

Jennifer Frankum's playful rhymes and jaunty rhythm anticipate the two-year-old's year of new experiences.

Brianne Maas has created bold primary-coloured illustrations for every action.

A book to be treasured by youngsters, their parents, grandparents and caregivers.

Softcover
$10.00 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-896922-59

Jennifer Frankum has taught secondary school in Port Elgin, Ontario, for twenty-five years. Her poetry is published in books and literary journals. Inspired by her daughter Natasha, this is her first book for children. Jennifer lives with her husband, two daughters, and two cats in a home with hundreds of books and much art.

Brianne Maas is an aspiring artist, studying illustration at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. She has been drawing and designing since childhood, and won the Senior Visual Arts Award at Saugeen District Secondary School. Her art has appeared on the cover of Southampton Art School catalogue and an issue of The Leaf. Living on her own, Brianne fills her time with studies and plenty of art work.

Jennifer signing books

Brianne autographing

Our Family Farm
stories from Bruce & Grey

Twelve writers recall closeness to their land and among family members.

Travel back in time to farming with horses and recovering from a barn fire. Explore farm kids’ gravel-pit playground, a mushroom-producing forest, and a thorn-infested hill pasture. Follow a city girl as she becomes a farm woman, a farm dog who needs rescuing, and a family’s heritage through six generations. Whether writing of yesterday’s making do or today’s determination to farm without debt, each contributor shares heart-felt experiences from their family farm.

“So much goes on in the fields, barns, and minds of the people who make a living on the back concessions, and seldom does it come to light,” writes Mike O’Neill. In celebration of the International Year of Family Farming, this book aims to reveal some of those thoughts and happenings.

Our Spirit Unbroken

After more than 40 successful missions in World War II, Andrew Cox was shot down over Germany, and spent nearly five years as a POW.

His memoirs of that time are presented in Our Spirit Unbroken where he finds humour even in prison camp situations.

We are proud to announce that this book has been selected by The Dominion Institute for their Bridges to Remembrance School Project. The Institute recommended it as a book for branches of the Royal Canadian Legion to donate to school libraries across Canada, and will assist schools who wish to host author Andrew Cox. More information is available on the Memory Project website.

OXENDEN The Way It Was

The tale of two villages that evolved into one community. 38 vignettes recall the early years of Native occupation, the settlers who displaced the original inhabitants, and the more recent families who enjoy the scenic setting. Winding through time, the stories and original drawings by the author depict buildings past and present.Accounts of hardship and misery, hope and dreams show the profound connections among residents over a century and a half. OXENDEN The Way It Was concludes in the 1950s, as a new era changed everything.

The Phantom Piper

It's David's first night at his grandad's in the small lakeside town where he's staying for the summer. . .

He missed his own room, its walls covered with posters of the Toronto Maple Leafs, his favourite hockey team. He missed the warm feeling he got when he turned the lights off and gazed at the fluorescent stars on the ceiling. When David finally tossed off the covers and closed his eyes, he drifted into a strange dream. In the dream, he struggled to keep control of a small boat while the lake rose around him. A huge wave swept over the boat. He clung to the mast as another wave bore down on him. Just as it smashed against the boat, he heard the faint sound of bagpipes. . .

With his new friend Emily, David finds real-life adventures on Lake Huron and meets The Phantom Piper.

#3 in the Brucedale Backpackers series of outdoor adventures for young readers

RESTLESS on Huron

From 1937 until the mid 1960s, RESTLESS and RESTLESS TOO carried passengers along the coast of Lake Huron between Port Elgin and Southampton, Ontario. John G. Mackay rode aboard from babyhood while his father, George Mackay, operated the vessel. Later, John crewed for both his father and partner Addie Cairns. To present the story of the building and sailing of the boats, John has spent several years researching old newspapers, family documents, and interviewing those who recall the harbours as they once were.

Generously illustrated with nostalgic photographs, this book will stir memories of the many folks for whom a ride on RESTLESS highlighted summer on the lakeshore.

Rusty Rails

A photographic record of branchline railways in Midwestern Ontario 1961-1996
By John R. Hardy

Documents 35 years in the history of rural transportation. With more than 200 original photographs by the author, this book coveys a personal approach to the rail lines that once criss-crossed the Ontario map.

Skyhill Stories

What began as a simple desire on the part of Lillian Burgess and her husband to build a house and work the land turned into a decades-long relationship with a small piece of the earth they named Skyhill Farm. The slow process of shaping and in turn, being shaped by this farm, has given all beings who live there a home, a place where they truly belong.

Skyhill Stories offers a quilt-like piecing together of many years of observations. Some early readers have suggested this book is a love story...

Somebody Move the Cat!

From her two-fold career as a teacher and musician, Sheila Balls draws humorous and touching anecdotes that will tickle readers' funny bones and strike chords of recognition.

As varied and satisfying as the foods at a community potluck supper, the more than forty personal reflections in Somebody Move the Cat! bring the flavour of fun to the adventures of family life.

Artist Lin Souliere has created cover art that conveys the warmth of Sheila's writing, welcoming readers into another quality softcover book that makes an ideal gift.

In a review of Somebody Move the Cat! [The Observer, March 2005] Muriel Duncan wrote, "These short anecdotes can be enjoyed a handful at a time but they are addictive enough to be totally consumed at a sitting."

Stocking Stories

There are two great little gift books in this series. One copy of each book, with 2 envelopes in a package.

Stowaway in the White Hurricane

An adventure novel for tween and teen readers.

Thirteen-year-old Lucy Clark is a fast runner and a girl with spirit, but she hates the nickname Lucy Landlubber. Defying her bullies and her fears, she hides aboard the Great Lakes freighter J. S. McConnell, where her father is wheelsman.

When they leave Cleveland, Ohio, on Friday, November 7, 1913, loaded with coal and other goods for ports on the Ontario coast, no one knows they will be caught in the Lakes` worst storm--the white hurricane. Like a nightmare come true, Lucy and the McConnell crew face fierce winds, high waves, and dangerous cold.

Barbara Aggerholm has drawn on accounts of the historic storm and her own experience as a newspaper reporter to create a tale of high drama and heroism. Stowaway in the White Hurricane is her second novel for young readers.

Cover art created by Phil McDonald.

116 pages softcover
$15.00 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-896922-56-0

NEW! for teachers and home-schooling parents

Student activity sheets to accompany reading of Stowaway in the White Hurricane. Developed and used by a classroom teacher, these pages can be downloaded to motivate and engage students.

Thanks to Dave Neil's wish to share, The Brucedale Press makes these available at no charge; however, we are interested in feedback from users.

Strong in my Skin

Jennifer Frankum's poetry has appeared in several Canadian literary journals, and in the anthology Saugeen Stories, published by The Brucedale Press in 1996. A mother, a daughter and granddaughter, she is keenly aware of connections between generations of women, and the men in their lives.

Tales of the Unusual "True" Mysteries of Bruce and Grey

Need a campfire tale with a little tingle? Looking for spirited stories to enjoy by the beach? Diane Madden has collected a fascinating record of unexplained happenings and strange feelings, all set in the Bruce-Grey area.

Thirty Years on Call, A Country Doctor's Family Life

Born in Grey County in 1888, Robert James Tucker taught in rural schools to pay for his university studies. After medical service in World War I and Queen's Military Hospital at Kingston, he cared for people of Paisley, Ontario, until his sudden death in 1948. Viola Huton Tucker, his wife, was a nurse; they met in Kingston, and, after the birth of their first baby, the young couple left the city. In Thirty Years On Call, their second daughter, Doris, reveals the challenges and joys of their family life.

Tooling Around

Tooling Around with Michael O'Neill takes readers down into trenches, up ladders, and around a hilly farm in midwestern Ontario. One day in the barn, the next in a wet basement, Mike applies humour in all situations. Equally handy with pitchfork, pipe wrench, and pen, he spins tales of on-the-job challenges and family fun.

Meet his helper Lady Bertha, the heifers that almost got away, and the grandsons who want him to play in the tree house. You'll chuckle as you follow Mike into crawl spaces and attics. Ride with him as Big Zed tackles thistles and a not-quite-all-terrain vehicle gives him a few surprises.

Michael O'Neill's stories have appeared in the weekly Lucknow Sentinel, a pair of independently published books, and the collection Our Farmily Farm: stories from Bruce & Grey.

The Brucedale Press $18.00 in Canada ISBN 978-1-896922-61-4

Now available in a Large Print edition.

ISBN 978-1-896922-65-2 $20.00

unforgotten dream

The Brucedale Press is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of a poetry collection by Judy Lowry, a longtime writer and artist from Grey County. Titled unforgotten dream, the book presents many new works along with some previously published.

A free flowing collection, unforgotten dream offers one poem leading to another, not always smoothly, reminiscent of dissonant music. As is much of Lowry's work, this writing is personal and autobiographical, also concerning itself with the human condition. Social commentary and raw emotion stand side by side whether the poet looks back or contemplates the future .

ISBN 978-1-896922-63-8 softcover $15.00

Walking Home

Walking home from Waterloo, Ontario, where he attended university, Dave Beverly-Foster followed the Grand River then traced the North Saugeen River. For twelve days, he trekked over 200 kilometres—on roads and rail trails, over bridges, through swamp, forest, and farmland, camping wherever he found shelter.

In this book, he reflects upon his experiences—earnest and absurd—and considers humans’ relationship with the land.
His photographs show the diverse rural terrain and the range of April weather he encountered.

240 pages including 8 pages of colour images.

ISBN978-1-896922-69-0 quality softcover $20.00

Why Not? a memoir in black and white

The feisty farmer who took on ownership of a small-town weekly newspaper recalls the ups and downs of life as co-publisher. In the twelve years that Carol and Harry Helfenstein published and edited The Teeswater News, they and their staff won fifteen awards. Starting in their own home on the Second Concession, they grew to an operation that presented two weeklies and several agriculturally oriented publication

From covering the Line in the Dirt farmers' crisis to getting obituaries right, they faced the challenges and felt the satisfactions of active involvement in their community and beyond. We proudly offer this book as celebration of an important aspect of rural life and proof that farmers can do anything.

240 pages illustrated with photographs from the files of The Teeswater News
$25.00 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-896922-41-6

Yet More Tales of the Unusual

Mysteries in our history Diane Madden's third collection takes us from the Bruce Peninsula to Great Lakes Erie and Ontario, and from past to near-present. What do Beautiful Joe, Tom Thomson, Jack the Ripper, and The Girl With the Blue Eyes have in common? They-and tales about them-show up in this book. Hauntings, rum runners, and "pennies from heaven" all appear in this new collection of usual happenings

100 pages quality softcover
$9.99 in Canada
ISBN978-1-896922-49-2

About our publications

Remember, all publications of the Brucedale Press are proudly produced entirely in Canada.